Squiggy lines on fire.

If you had a MacBook in 2018, and the El Capitan operating system. The picture below and the rest of the pictures in this post might look familiar to you. They are from Yosemite National Park. These enormous granite walls are captivating and grandiose and hard to forget once you have seen them in photos, let alone in person.

The title of this story is called Squiggly lines because that is exactly the type of road we took to arrive in Groveland CA, about an hour outside of the Yosemite National Park. If you are coming from SF and you are not experienced in sharp mountain passes without rails, then maybe pass through Mariposa CA instead. Shoutout to my best friend on the way there and husband on the way back that drove through this because if I was alone I would have 100% turned around. And I have driven through Alaska's mountain passes but at least on the way from Anchorage to Wrangel St Elias National Park, the mountain passes were wide and guarded!

Now squiggly lines are on fire because we had to deal with nearby fires in the park. This is going to be mostly centered on my unique experience of traveling in the summer in Northern California. I have been to over 30 National Parks at this point and only one other park was our experience greatly impacted by a weather event. We went to Congaree National Park in SC a few years ago, where some of the trails were underwater due to a hurricane passing through the night before. Looking back, it was probably not smart to wade through it in a swamp...Anyways, this one was the total opposite of wet. It was very very dry due to the time of the season, fires burning nearby, and incredibly high hazardous levels of air quality. This is not to say this trip was not successful and the sites were not epic. We were able to hike but it took some last min flexibility and planning.

We arrived in Groveland, CA where we stayed in a B&B and Colby realized that Tuolumne Meadows was the only area in the Yosemite area where the AQI ( an air quality health index) was stable and healthy despite the fires nearby.

How is that possible? Well, it is thanks to a higher elevation, starting out at 8,600 ft above elevation, which in comparison is higher than Mexico City's elevation (7,200 ft) but lower than Cusco, Peru (11,000). I remember when we landed in Cusco and felt slightly off immediately. Another reason why the air quality is good in this area is because of the Meadow itself, with 3 creeks flowing through it. The water is so healthy here it is the drinking source of San Francisco and requires little water treatment according to nps.gov. Groundwater keeps this ecosystem healthy and climate change resistant. Now it makes sense when I googled, what to do if you are stuck in a fire (not that was going to happen to us because the fires were far but curious), one of the pieces of advice was to head to a Meadow if nearby.

We had to make a reservation to enter the park which was a first for me. I think it had to do with the influx of visitors during the pandemic since the safest parts pre vaccines were outside, and for almost two years the parks were at or over capacity. I remember when we went to Utah and Arches National Park in the middle of December was packed at 8 am. If you missed that post you can catch it here. It makes me happy to see more interest in National Parks because hopefully, it spreads awareness on the policy we need to enact and who we need to vote for to keep these areas healthy while being accessible to the public.

On the way, we passed an expansive and wide lake called Tenaya Lake. It was green. blue, and clear. Lots of people were swimming, kayaking, canoeing, or soaking some sun on large rocks nearby. If we had more time I would have definitely wanted to spend more time and go for a swim. The lake is named after Chief Tenaya, the last chief of Yosemite Indians. The Ahawanchee were made out of 7 Indian Tribes Sadly like many areas in National Parks, there was a lot of bloodshed, and all the Yosemite Indian's homes were burned and they were forced to resettle elsewhere or were killed fighting back to protect their land where generations have lived for thousands of years. This was during the Gold Rush era when miners then after the brutal force of Indian removal settled. Yosemite gets its name from the Lieutenant that led the Mariposa Battalion with local miners. Although he thought he was naming it after the Indians he mispronounced Awhanee as Yosemite.

To get to Tuolumne Meadows we had to go deep into the park and drive for about an hour. When we arrived the parking lot was packed of course, because it was the only area with healthy air during the day. After creating makeshift parking on a curb, we made our way to the hike. This was the first time Colby and I started a National Park hike so late in the day but we wanted to get to the valley an hour away after 4 pm when the AQI was going to move from hazardous to fair. It was blazing hot at first and I could feel the elevation but after a couple of miles, I started to feel better.

It was a relatively easy hike but the elevation made it harder. I was also not used to the dry climate. We saw the top part of Cathedral peak jut out around mile 3 and ended up at the lake a mile after. It was so impressive.

The granite is shaped by snow melt and erosion and just leaves these impressive cliffs. No wonder this is a rock climbing heaven. I looked up the routes for this peak and I think I may be actually able to climb one of these routes. It is always harder to judge outdoor climbing because to me it's 10x harder than climbing inside but some of these are 5.5s and I can climb some 5.10s at the gym. Hmmm......I think my mom would kill me but look how cool this photo is.

We cooled off and ate our tangerines and Rx bars by the lake. There were groups of people either sunbathing, diving into the lake down to their underwear, or relaxing.

We packed it all up because "No trace left behind" is a mantra in National Park sites.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/ccba74_ef6ba3c30b194603bee3bb8bae22c328/720p/mp4/file.mp4

We headed back to the car and drove an hour to Yosemite Valley. The Dawn Wall and El Capitan did not disappoint. These are famous rock climbing areas. You might have heard of Alex Honnold if you have Netflix or rock climb. Even if you don't rock climb, his feat rippled across any conversation in 2017 because he did a superhuman effort by solo climbing (meaning no ropes), up El Capitan. Another climber that Colby and I are in awe of is Tommy Caldwell. Not only did he climb one of the hardest climbs on the planet at a 5.14d that took him and his partner Kevin Jorgeson about six years to complete, but he also did it without his left index finger he sawed off by accident when building a platform for his washer and dryer.

After we ate ravenously at the Yosemite Valley Lodge. We headed back to our B&B but caught the sunset in the valley before leaving. The mosquitoes were intense at this view point; they were large and tried to fly into my eyes so we snapped some quick fast photos here.

Unfortunately, when we got back to the B&B they had a blackout. Rolling blackouts I found out are common in California in the summer, especially during a heatwave as strong as the one this weekend. We were in a National Park with forests, lakes, rivers, valleys, mountains, etc where temperatures are mostly cooler. Nearby cities like Stockton, CA here we passed through to get gas felt like 115 degrees, and 300K people live here. Essentially, the energy companies forecast energy consumption like air conditioning during a heatwave and shut off power in certain areas for a couple of hours to save the infrastructure energy when demand peaks to avoid complete shutdowns. It is to avoid massive power shutdowns like the one that happened in late 2019 where millions of people lost power at a time. Typically the blackouts last 2 hours but when we arrived at 9 pm it has already been 3 hours. I took a cold shower and we passed around an ice bag to keep us cool. Since we left the park the B&B at night's temperatures were around 88 degrees, so not entirely comfortable to sleep in. I was so tired from walking 12 miles that day that I passed out regardless but thankfully we awoke to the air conditioning turning on at midnight.

That concludes the Yosemite blog post! Although it was tricky to plan around the heat waves and AQI, Yosemite was absolutely breathtaking. Although our plan is to see almost all the National Parks, this is a park that I would definitely return to. I want to swim in Tenaya Lake and check out Half Dome, another famous granite wall whose access point (Glacier Point Road) was closed. It is one of the most impressive parks I have been to. Definitely come visit outside of the fire season. I bet during winter with the snow it is gorgeous.

Below is an ode to my Yosemite muse my best friend Raquel who came with us and lend us her car which Colby took off-roading for a bit on a wrong turn. We are deeply thankful for you!